Adelaide
06 - 09 December 2022
It was beginning to look a lot like an Australian Christmas in the Adelaide Airport. In case you are wondering, from left to right: Emu, Kangaroo, Koala, wombat.
Brilliant Purple Jacaranda trees are blooming everywhere in Adelaide. We saw these on our walk to dinner at an Italian Restaurant on Tuesday night. Julie wants to live somewhere where she can have a yard full of these.
Santa standing in the bushes outside of the Adelaide Market.
Our hotel was located across from Victoria Square in the Center of Adelaide. We were a block from the Adelaide Market, the largest enclosed market in the Southern Hemisphere and second largest in the world. There was a FREE tram across the street, which we took to dinner one night.
Adelaide was in full Christmas mode. Here are some photos of the decorations near our hotel.
On Wednesday, we visited the Adelaide Zoo and adjacent Botanical Gardens. Another great Aussie Zoo, which you can see everything in 2 or 3 hours. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the Pandas (because they were busy trying to make more Pandas) But the habitrail for the Red Panda was pretty cool and the otters were realllly cute.
The Adelaide Botanical Garden contained a mix of plants, animals, architecture and art. We chased a pair of wild parrots around the rose garden. Also, there was an interesting sculpture in a pool.
Lesson Learnt: OTC drug restrictions may differ… On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the International Church of Costco to replenish some of Julie’s medicines, which are readily purchased in bulk back home. We stopped at the nearest (open) pharmacy and learned that we could only purchase it 14 tablets at a time. However, Anthony was able to purchase an energizing orange drink (with the intimidating picture of an angry young lady) over the counter.
For dinner that night, we took the tram to an American Style sports bar across the river from the local sports arena. After dinner, we took a walk along the waterfront. It may be summer here, but it was plenty chilly by the water.
My glass of Tawny is sadly empty, next to this Tun of 40 year.
Thursday morning we were picked up at the hotel for the Taste of the Barossa wine tour. Our driver, Baden, regaled us with how cool Adelaide is with it’s Festivals, religious freedoms, decriminalizing ownership of pot for personal use, legalizing open container, and nude Olympics. We drove through the Adelaide hills and stopped at the whispering wall, a dam that holds some of the water for Adelaide. A happy accident of the construction is that sound is carried from one end to another.
We learned that the Germans settled in the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley. Anthony was told that there was a Shutzenfest in Tanunda, and we should reach out to the Chamber of Commerce there to see if they needed a (Little) German Band with Dancers. Our first stop was Chateau Yaldara, where we picked up a Sparkling white and a yummy Tawny (Port). Next stopped at Peter Lehman, who single handedly saved viticulture in the Barossa Valley in the 1980s. We bought a very yummy Shiraz and another sparkling white at the Rosendale winery. We finished up at the Pepperjack winery. In all, the sparkling whites and the Tawny ports were excellent. The reds were a bit acidic for our taste.
Our last day in Adelaide, we drove down to Aldinga Beach, which lets sunbathers park their cars on the beach (we didn’t). The day was nice enough to swim, but we didn’t bring our suits so we just dipped our toes in the South Ocean.
We stopped in Glenelg, a beachfront suburb of Adelaide, got burritos for dinner, walked out on the pier and rode the Ferris wheel.
To cap off our time in Adelaide, we went on the Z-Ward tour with Adelaide Haunted Horizons. We spent two hours in an asylum for the criminally insane (used until 1973). Our guide, Kag, told us stories of creepy experiences the paranormal investigators and past tour participants experienced. During the tour, Kag would put people in certain “active” cells as bait, to see if anything would happen. At the end of the tour, each of us were shut in a cell by ourselves, in the dark, for five minutes. Neither Anthony or Julie experienced anything, however, during the tour we both had reactions. Julie had never had so many goose bumps during a tour before and Anthony felt light vertigo at the beginning. At the end Julie was certain she saw shadows moving in front of a window at the end of the hall. All in all this was one of the best ghost tours we have done.
